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Grosjean trying to avoid more first-lap drama

Romain Grosjean is working hard to avoid the early troubles he has had in recent races. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Troubled Lotus driver Romain Grosjean said today in Korea that he’s doing his best to avoid the sort of controversy that has blighted his season.

Grosjean has been involved in a string of first-lap incidents this year, to the frustration of both his rivals and his own team.

After being banned from the Italian GP after the Belgian GP crash, he was once again in the wars in Japan, landing a 10-second stop-and-go penalty after a clash with Mark Webber at the first corner.

“Mark came to see me and I completely understand that he was unhappy,” said the Franco-Swiss driver. “The only thing I could say was to apologize and that’s what I did. I’m clearly conscious of the risk at the start, I’m working on changing on quite a lot of things, but work doesn’t come from one day to the other one.

“There is a process going on. I said I was very sorry. I’m not stupid and I’m conscious of the risk. And hopefully by now it will be different, and I will not make the mistake of focusing on the wrong targets.”

Grosjean said he would try to keep out of trouble this weekend.

“Not having any contact on the first lap, that’s clearly one of the objectives. I’d say there’s work in progress and it takes a bit of time, but yeah, it’s a cycle as well: things have been going bad, and the more it goes bad … I’m conscious of the risk at the start. The Spa accident was quite impressive and I was the first one to be happy that Fernando had nothing [ie was not injured].

“I paid the price as well for my mistake. In the team we spoke quite a lot; they are not happy, I am not happy the way we have been going through the first laps. There are 550 people working at Enstone to give us the best car and if you ruin everything in the first 100 meters, it’s not good. I’m conscious of all of that and will try to take as many precautions as possible to go through the first lap – and then normally in the race we are OK.”

Webber meanwhile said the matter was closed: “Yeah, absolutely. I went to see Romain, we had a discussion about it and that was that.”